


I Have Been A Sojourner In A Foreign Land

by GillianInOz



Series: Sweet Work [4]
Category: Lewis - Fandom
Genre: Episode s2:3 Life Born of Fire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 10:06:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12318846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillianInOz/pseuds/GillianInOz
Summary: Turns out ignoring the rules – even in a good cause like shagging the dishy Sergeant Hathaway – can have consequences. Set in and around Life Born Of Fire.





	I Have Been A Sojourner In A Foreign Land

**Author's Note:**

> Warning – I have rewritten this episode around the boys relationship.

“Where’s your better half?” Laura teased and Robbie suppressed a smirk.

“If you mean Sergeant Hathaway, he’ll be along,” he said. “What have we got?”

Laura showed him the suicide and he studied the scene. A nice looking lad, too young to have been driven to the despair of taking his own life. And why in a church of all places?

The church’s front door opened and James strode in, a cheerful grin on his face. Robbie shook his head. If ever a man was telegraphing being well laid, it was his lanky lad. Did he want everyone speculating about his love life?

The minute James saw the suicide victim his face fell, all life and joy seeming to fall from him. He looked up once, desperately at Robbie, who felt the shock of the look right to his heart. Then James turned and literally ran from the church.

“Is James all right?” Laura asked him, minutes later, and Robbie had to pretend he didn’t know. Hadn’t she seen his face? He obviously knew the victim, of course he wasn’t all right.

Robbie forced himself to follow procedure, quickly interviewing the witness to the suicide so the man could be on his way, all the time keeping an eye on James in the graveyard. Finally Robbie was done and he could stroll over and join him on the bench. Together they gazed at the lovely green yard, its stones so weathered names and dates were hardly legible. 

“So, you two?” Robbie asked sympathetically.

“Were close,” James said. 

“I’m so sorry,” Robbie sighed. “Best if you go home, eh?”

James shook his head. “We were close,” he said. “A long time ago. I’m fine, sir, I’d like to see this through.” He looked Robbie in the eye. “I’m all right,” he said firmly.

Once upon a time Robbie might have bought that, but not now. He knew every expression on James’s face, along with every inch of his body. James had shut down, his face was blank, his muscles as tight as a drum. 

“You’re not all right,” he said gently. “And there’s no reason you should be. Talk to me, love.”

James’s eyes flickered and Robbie knew it was because his governor had just crossed a line, one he had never crossed before. At work Robbie addressed his sergeant as Hathaway and occasionally James. Even on a few memorable occasions that Robbie had paid for later, Jim. But Robbie saved the soft voice and the gentle endearments for their safe havens, behind the closed doors of their homes. 

“There’s nothing to say,” James insisted.”I haven’t seen him or talked to him for years.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. He was still your friend, walking in and seeing him dead clearly hit you like a ton of bricks.”

If anything James’s face closed up even more. “I’m fine,” he insisted, making to stand, but Robbie pulled him back, tilting his head to try and catch the eyes evading his gaze.

“James,” he murmured. “It’s me. You can trust me with anything you need to say. You do trust me, don’t you?”

James was shaking his head. “It’s not that,”he insisted, his voice even. “There’s nothing to say.”

Robbie leaned back, a pang of disappointment assailing him. “Is that really how you feel?” he said, and maybe that disappointment was showing a little, because James quickly pushed up and away from the stone bench.

“I’d like to work this case, sir,” he said stiffly. “I know Will’s family, his friends, I can help.”

Robbie took a deep breath, turning it over in his head. It was obvious this was affecting James a lot more than he was letting on, but what he was saying was true enough. Innocent would only give him so much time to work on a clear case of suicide, and it would certainly save some of that precious time if he had James pointing them in the right direction.

Robbie’s old copper instincts told him that there was a lot more going on behind Hathaway’s blank expression than he wanted Robbie to see, but what else was new? They shared a bed and great sex, but not really much else, something neither of them had been in too much of a hurry to change.

“All right,” he said slowly, because he was the last one to go gung ho on the regs. One of the disadvantages of breaking so many rules to indulge in his affair with his pretty young sergeant was that it didn’t leave him much of a moral leg to stand on.

Anyway, bugger it. Something was going on with James, and Robbie wanted to know what it was. 

“All right, you can point me in the right direction on this. But if I think you can’t handle it I’ll take you off the case and you can go back to the nick and catch up on paperwork. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” James said. “Thank you.” 

But he didn’t look very thankful, Robbie thought. He looked like a man being handed a sentence.

“You ever heard of this group? The Garden?”

James took the paper in the plastic evidence bag and looked at it. Robbie supposed the slight tremor in his hands could be explained away by the bloody streaks on the yellow pamphlet.

“No, what is it?” James said, already walking away. 

Shit, Robbie thought. He’s lying.

“Not sure yet,” Robbie said, studying James’s stiff back speculatively. “Apparently Will was very devout.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“And yet he desecrates a church?”

“Well you can believe in God and still be angry with him.”

“Hmm.” Robbie handed him the photo with the suicide note on the back. “His friend’s Feardorcha Phelan. You know him?”

888

Henry McEwan was an eye opener, and quite a few things became clear as he explained that he’d been estranged with his son over his ‘lifestyle choices’. Well. Robbie knew what that meant.

“You didn’t tell me you’d stayed with Will’s family,” he said as they walked back to the car.

“Yeah, one summer when we were fourteen. Sorry, I should have mentioned it.”

“What about the fact that Will was gay?” Robbie said, and James flinched and then just blinked at him. “Not going to tell me you didn’t know that, are you?”

“Well, he didn’t wear a badge or anything,” James said, trying for a light tone and utterly failing. “But yeah, I think he was gay.”

“You think?” Robbie said, but he didn’t push it. He resumed the stroll back down the street. “So was this Feardorcha his boyfriend then?”

“Maybe,” James said. “Maybe that’s why he and his father fell out.”

“It’s a bloody shame,” Robbie said, grimacing. “But I’ve seen it enough times over the years to know it goes on. Can’t tell you how many homeless kids I’ve seen who were chucked out just for being who they are.”

“Will’s mother would never have rejected him,” James said with conviction. “Sadie is a lovely lady.”

“But he didn’t go to her in the end, did he?” Robbie said.

James didn’t answer. 

888

There was a panda car outside Mrs McEwan’s house, so she’d already been informed of her son’s death. When they pulled up across the street Robbie sat and looked at James for a few moments, his concern mounting. James was sitting with his eyes closed, his face as blank as it had been since their talk on the stone bench at the graveyard.

“You all right?” Robbie asked gently, and James’s eyes flew open.

“Yes,” he said quickly. “Its just that Will’s mother was such a sweet lady, you know?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Robbie, began, but James was already pushing open the door and thrusting his long legs out.

Robbie sighed. Why he’d chosen a god botherer to become infatuated with at his time of life was anyone’s guess. But did he have to pick one so attached to his hair shirt? 

Mrs McEwan was a bit of an eye opener as well, and now Robbie knew that James and Will had had a falling out when they were teens. Just a kids thing? Or something more serious? Serious enough that Sadie still remembered it all these years later. 

“A girlfriend?” he said to James on the front step. “How does that fit in?”

“It doesn’t,” James said flatly. “Will was gay.”

“Oh, now you’re sure he was gay?” Robbie said. James opened his mouth but Robbie waved a hand, already sick of the lies and half truths. “Was he in denial? Putting on a fake relationship just for show?”

James shrugged.

888

“Coming to mine for a meal tonight?” Robbie invited, already sure he knew the answer, but deciding to put the invitation out there.

“No, thanks,” James said, avoiding his eyes. “I think I’ll get an early night.”

Another time Robbie might have joked about one not precluding the other, but instead he just stopped and leaned against the car.

“Can you do something for me, James?” he said quietly, looking down at his shoes. 

“Sir?” 

“Can you start tomorrow off fresh and try not to lie to me?”

Robbie waited a beat or two and looked up. James was clenching his jaw, staring away from him down the street, as if weighing up his chances of outrunning his governor if he took off. 

“Tell me to sod off, tell me to mind me own business. Get radical and tell me the truth if you like. But don’t lie to me, okay? I can take just about anything but that.” He pulled the car keys out of his pocket and tossed them, and James automatically caught them and stood looking at them. 

“You take the car, I fancy a walk,” Robbie said. And he strolled off down the street and left his sergeant standing there.

And this, Robert Lewis, he thought to himself sternly, is why shagging one’s sergeant is not a good idea.

888

Next morning was the gruesome death of Father King, reverend at St Marks, the church where Will McEwan had killed himself. Suddenly Robbie found himself in a tough position. It was one thing to let James take part in the investigation of a suicide, despite his better judgment, but if King’s death was connected to Will’s – and every instinct Robbie had told him it was – then now he had a sergeant who was way too closely connected working on a murder case.

A sergeant who looked like he hadn’t slept all night and had chosen a Red Bull breakfast. 

888

Robbie deliberately didn’t ask James any direct questions, they worked the scene, looked though King’s paperwork, and talked to a journalist who confirmed that King had helped run The Garden, although it was still a mystery as to what The Garden was. 

James seemed calmer today, now that the case wasn’t directly about Will McEwan, and Robbie started to hope that maybe he had taken his request to heart. But once they had The Garden as a link between Will and King, they had a reason to search Will’s flat, and the James of the day before was back. Edgy, avoiding his eyes, stiff. 

They stopped for a drink and carried their glasses into the beer garden, Robbie leading the way to the most private table he could find. He sipped his orange juice and watched in concern as James downed a scotch. He’d never seen him drink anything stronger than a pint at lunchtime.

Heart in his boots Robbie wrapped both hands around his sweating glass. He sighed. “I’m an old fool,” he said sourly.

James glanced at him curiously. 

“A selfish old fool.” He looked around the pretty green space, automatically noting the other patrons, the couples, the colleagues, the new acquaintances. An adult lifetime as a cop and he could still screw up so badly.

“Sir?” 

“I’ve let you down,” he said heavily. “And I’ve let myself down. I’ve compromised my position as your governor, and now you don’t trust me. And who could blame you? I’m sorry, James, I’m so sorry.”

James stared at him, his face frozen. “Sir,” he managed, but then he just shook his head, as if unable to say any more.

“A suicide was one thing,” Robbie said. “But I can’t let a murder investigation be compromised because I’m too afraid of hurting my lover’s feelings to call him out when he’s lying to me.”

James darted a look at the neighbouring tables, and then back at him. His face was white beneath his summer tan. 

“I’m going to talk to Innocent this afternoon, take some of the leave that I have coming. I can read Grainger into the case, and get him to take it over. Maybe you’ll find you can talk to him if you can’t trust me.”

“Please, sir,” James managed, but Robbie held up a hand. 

“It’s all right, James, I don’t blame you. I’m the one that broke the rules, I’m the one -”

“I’m not a child,” James burst out, and now there were a few curious looks from the nearby patrons. “I wasn’t forced into anything. I made my own decision.”

Robbie nodded. “But I made the first move. Something I should never have done.”

“Please don’t say that,” James said desperately. “Please don’t say that.”

Robbie frowned at him, hearing real distress in his voice, even though his face was still frozen and blank. James looked back at him and Robbie actually felt the pain he saw in James’s eyes echoed in his chest. He glanced around at the tables where the occupants were now studiously minding their own business.

“Let’s get out of here,” Robbie muttered, and he got up and stalked out, not looking back to see if James was following him. He crossed the road and the bridge, then into the park that ran along the river. He avoided the cyclist path and walked across the grass until he found what he was looking for, an old wooden bench set in amongst flowering bushes. 

He sat down and watched James walk slowly in his footsteps, trekking through the newly mown grass and stopping a few feet away.

“So,” Robbie said. “Here we are again. Not everyone gets a do-over, James, but this is yours. I owe you that much.”

“What do you want from me?” James said, fists clenched by his sides. 

“Trust,” Robbie said. “I trust you, I always trust you. And until yesterday I thought you trusted me.”

“I do trust you. I do,” James said insistently when Robbie slanted him a wry look. 

“But not enough to tell me the truth. And I’ve a horrible feeling it’s because I crossed a line I shouldn’t have. If I was just your governor, if I was DI Knox, would you have tried to cover up whatever it is that’s eating you alive right now?”

James crossed his long arms defiantly across his chest. “Nothing’s eating me alive, I’m -“

Robbie held up his hand. “Tell me you’re fine, Hathaway and I swear to god I will walk away from this and you. I mean it,” he said, his voice hard. 

James dropped his arms, staring at him in shock. 

“Do not mistake me, sergeant,” he said, standing up and looking the younger man in the eye. “It may suit me to play the silly old Geordie on the job, but I was a copper when you were running around in a nappy and pilchers. I know lies when I hear them, and I know that you’ve been hiding something from me since you ran out of that church yesterday.”

James tried to meet his eyes, managed it for a moment, then flicked his gaze away. 

Robbie softened his voice a little. “And I know you, James, although not as well as I hope to one day. I know you’re not a deceitful man.”

James’s arms came up again to cross his body, but not defiantly this time, more defensively, hands tucked under his armpits.

“Whatever it is, you can trust me with it,” Robbie said, softer still. “You have to trust me, James. At this point it’s that, or I have to walk away. For both our sakes.”

James rubbed tiredly at his eyes with one trembling hand, and Robbie felt his heart break a little. Dammit, he was in love with this silly, awkward sod, and all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around him and tell him everything was going to be all right.

But that was what he needed, not what James needed. James needed his governor now, not his lover.

Robbie sat back down on the bench, doing all that he could do. Wait. He was very aware that he had gambled everything on this. His job, his working partnership with James, the impulsive fling that had somehow morphed into the second great love of his life, god help him. 

All of it in the trembling hands of a man not yet thirty. A private, secretive, intelligent, funny, frighteningly deep young man, who looked as if he’d barely slept in the last 24 hours. 

Finally, slowly, James took the last few steps and sat down beside him on the bench. Holding his breath, Robbie waited.

“I never intended for it to go so far,” James finally said. “I swear I didn’t. I thought if I could just get through the day, surely we wouldn’t spend more than a day on a suicide. But it all spiralled out of control so quickly. One lie, and then another lie to cover that lie.” He spread shaking hands. “And the further I went the harder it was to go back.” 

He turned to Robbie. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you, sir, I swear it’s not. And our… us. Our private life, that’s got nothing to do with it. Please don’t reproach yourself for what I’ve done. I can’t imagine I would have acted any differently no matter who I was working with.”

Robbie absorbed this, meeting James’s earnest gaze thoughtfully. “I want to believe you,” he said slowly. “But trust, once broken, is hard to mend. That might take a little time.”

James lowered his gaze and Robbie shook his head fondly. Dramatic sod, did he know how penitent and priestly he looked when he did that? Probably not, James could be so clever in some ways, and yet seem to lack any self awareness in others.

“Let’s start at the first lie then,” Robbie said. “Before it all snowballed.”

James nodded. “The Garden,” he confessed. 

“You know what it is?”

“Will told me about it the last time we talked. At least, he told me enough that I could figure it out. I think it was one of those pray the gay away deals. Like a gay cure.”

Robbie absorbed this, a small piece of information that suddenly illuminated so many others. The secrecy around such a group, King lying about his involvement with The Garden, Will’s rage at a God he still believed in.

He wanted to slap James on the head and ask him why he’d felt it necessary to lie about such a thing, but James was still sitting slumped miserably next to him, and the story had barely begun.

“Do you know anything else about The Garden?”

James shook his head. “No, I promise.”

“Why did Will talk to you about it?” 

James hunched his shoulders and Robbie brushed that aside for the moment. “Life Born of Fire,” he said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” James said. “Other than the Phoenix symbol we’ve already seen.”

Robbie leaned back against the bench, eyeing James. “Were you and Will lovers?”

James turned to look at him, genuinely shocked. “No. Never. I’ve never, only you, no other…” he trailed off, face red. “No other men,” he mumbled.

Robbie sat, poleaxed. “Okay,” he said a bit numbly. “Um, we’ll get back to that later.”

James nodded gratefully.

“Uh, where was I?” Robbie rubbed the back of his head. “I’m just having a hard time understanding why you felt the need to lie about all this. What is so terrible that you couldn’t tell me about it when I gave you the chance?” 

James gazed at him, his face bleak. “Because it’s my fault. Will is dead because of me.”

Robbie’s heart quickened as he sensed they were finally getting to the heart of it. “How is it your fault?”

“He came to me for help,” James said. “He reached out, and I couldn’t have reacted worse if I’d had that gun and shot him myself.” 

“Reached out for what?”

James looked away. “You know he was gay,” he said quietly. “And you know that I am too. But I wasn’t brave like him. We were fourteen when he told me, so sure we’d just kiss and everything would be fine.”

“What did you do?” Robbie asked gently.

“I laughed at him,” James said bluntly. “I wanted to be cruel, I wanted to hurt him. I didn’t want to hear him joyously telling me he was gay, when I’d been fighting like hell to push those thoughts and feelings away in myself.”

“You were just a lad,” Robbie said sympathetically. “Fighting your own demons.”

“But I never grew up,” James said bitterly. “I never admitted who and what I was. Will did, he embraced that side of himself. And do you know what I did? I lied to myself and everyone else. Buried who and what I was in prayers and study. To expiate my sins by taking on a lifelong penance.”

“By becoming a priest,” Robbie guessed. Well, that explained one thing he’d often wondered. 

“God, I was a smug little bastard,” James said thickly. “So sure I’d conquered my demons, so contemptuous of all those weak sinners who’d given into theirs. Have you ever been so sure of something, and then when you look back you can’t believe you ever thought that way?” he demanded.

“We were all young once,” Robbie said. “We all made mistakes.”

“Will’s mistake was in thinking I was someone he could go to for help,” James said bitterly.

“When you were in the seminary.” 

“He came to me, begging for advice. I can see now he just wanted me to tell him that he was all right, that it was all right to be whoever he was, you know?”

Robbie nodded.

“But I couldn’t do that, I was so sure that I was right. I said…” James stared defiantly into Robbie’s eyes. “I said men who commit indecent acts with other men will receive due punishment for their perversions.” 

Robbie looked back at him, his heart breaking for that troubled young man, for both the troubled young men. “And he went back to them.”

“And they destroyed him,” James said, his jaw tight. “And I could see that it was my blind faith in a religion I believed rejected everything we were that took away any chance he had of happiness.”

“And that’s why you left the priesthood.” Another mystery solved.

James nodded. He sat there, shoulders still stiff, just staring at Robbie. 

“If you’re waiting for me to condemn you,” Robbie said. “You’ll wait a long time.”

“It’s the least I deserve.”

“You fucked up,” Robbie said bluntly. James’s shoulders jerked. “You were young and confused and you fucked up. You let your friend down, and you’ll have to live with that. But I’ve got to believe, James, that Will was let down by a lot of other people in the years since he saw you last. That he made some bad choices of his own. What about this boyfriend of his? What about his family? Why is it all on you?”

James stared at him blankly. “He needed me and I betrayed him.”

“Sounds like you needed someone as well,” Robbie said. “Who was there for you?” 

James frowned. “It’s not the same,” he said. “Will was so sweet, so kind.”

And so weak, Robbie thought uncharitably, but he didn’t say it aloud.

“Is that everything now?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know,” Robbie said. “I don’t know what you’re not telling me.”

James pulled out his phone. “Feardorcha,” he confessed. “I tried to phone him last night.”

“You have his number?” Robbie shook his head in exasperation and James shrugged. 

“Sorry. He didn’t answer, and then this morning he called me, but he just kind of breathed down the line.”

Robbie frowned thoughtfully. “You said that maybe someone blamed King for Will’s death. Do you think it’s Feardorcha?”

James shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I didn’t know him that well.”

“Well enough to have his number. Well enough to have kept it.”

“I always keep numbers,” James said. “And they just gave me Feardorcha’s in case I needed to contact Will and couldn’t get hold of him. It was casual, it didn’t mean anything.”

“All right.” Robbie eyed James who was now sitting forward, hands clasped together, elbows on knees. “You okay?”

James shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. He glanced at Robbie over his shoulder. “I’m sorry I betrayed your trust, Robbie.”

Robbie shook his head. “I know you are. What I don’t know is if you’ll do it again.”

James looked away. “I’ve made such a mess.” He hung his head.

“Oh, go on,” Robbie said, patting him fondly on the back. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’ve got a head start here, James. I want to trust you again. You just need to earn it by being completely honest with me about this case from now on.”

James nodded solemnly. “I will,” he said. 

“Ya daft ha’porth,” Robbie said, and the pat on the back turned to a comforting rub and James was leaning back and somehow Robbie had his arm around him, right there in public on a park bench.

“You’re not going to hand the case over to someone else then?” James asked hopefully.

“I should,” Robbie said. “I really should.”

“And us?” James asked. “Are you going to end us?”

“I really should,” Robbie said again. “This could all go pear shaped on us in a heartbeat, James, I think you see that now.”

“Yes,” James said sombrely.

“Ah, bugger it,” Robbie said, and the arm around James waist squeezed. “When this case is done we’ll talk, really talk, all right?”

James glanced at him. 

“I’ve told you from the beginning that this is in your hands, James,” Robbie said. “That much is still true. The reasons for me to end it are the reasons I never should have started it. But I did start it, I can’t change that now. When this case is done, if you want to end that part of our relationship, we will. And if you choose to do that but still want to work with me, well. We can do that too.”

James stared at him, bemused. “You think we could go on working together?”

“I don’t want to work with anyone else,” Robbie said honestly. 

James’s cheeks flushed with a little colour for the first time that day. 

“Don’t make a decision now,” Robbie said before he could say anything. “We’ll see the case through, and then we’ll talk. Okay?”

James nodded, and took a deep breath. “What next?” 

888

James dutifully reported meeting Zöe Kenneth and Jonjo Read at St Marks, and, more worryingly, yet another silent phone call from Feardorcha’s line. After learning from King’s papers who exactly the founders of The Garden were, and that it was run through Mayfield College, Lewis left Hathaway to continue sifting through the contents of the murdered reverend’s office.

“Stay in the nick,” Robbie ordered. “I don’t like these calls you’re getting. Whoever murdered King is still out there, and if this is some grudge for Will’s sake…” Robbie glanced around at the bustling police station. “I don’t want you out there without me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

888

“I want to go home,” James said stubbornly.

“And I want to win the Pools and retire to Marbella,” Robbie said. “But we don’t always get what we want in life.”

James set his jaw and attempted to stare him down, but Robbie just gazed back impassively. The lad had a formidable stare, but Robbie had worked for Chief Inspector Morse for fifteen years, no one could stare him down.

“You could be the target of a sadistic murderer,” Robbie said as James finally dropped his gaze and stared sulkily at his shoes. “And in that ideal world where I’m sitting on a beach drinking cocktails from a coconut through a straw, I could get a couple of uniforms to stand guard at your door. But do you want to be the one to explain to Innocent why she should okay the overtime for your bodyguard?”

“I can take care of myself,” James insisted.

“We don’t even know how many killers we’re looking at here, remember?”

“We also don’t know if King’s murder is even connected to Will,” James tried pointing out. 

“You’re staying at mine tonight,” Robbie said shortly. “Or me at yours. Either way, you’re getting the bloody couch. So stop arguing and decide what you want for tea. We’ll stop on the way.”

“I’m not hungry,” James said sullenly. “If you’re going to stop make it an off licence.”

“Yeah, right,” Lewis sighed as the younger man stalked away. “Because we always make the best decisions while drunk.”

888

True to his word James ignored his tagliatelle with prawns, although he did deliberately pick at Robbie’s chicken in wine sauce until Robbie put his arm around his plate protectively.

“Oy,” he said. “If you’re trying to pick a fight think of some other way. Gino’s chicken is sacrosanct.”

James pushed his plate away and finished his beer, twisting the lid off the next one even as he drained the last to the dregs.

“I’m not trying to pick a fight,” he said moodily. “I just didn’t want any company tonight.” 

“And I didn’t want to attend a crime scene tomorrow and find your corpse with its brains burned out. They’re kind of annoying brains right now, but they’re yours and I’m still fond of them.”

James fiddled with the label on his bottle. “I was thinking about what you said. About not being completely to blame for what Will did.”

“Sounds a bit nuts when you say it aloud, doesn’t it?” Robbie said. 

James shrugged. “I suppose. I know I’m not completely to blame, you’re right about that. But knowing that doesn’t make me feel better about the part I played. I haven’t been that stupid kid for years, but I still didn’t seek Will out, I didn’t try and make things right with him.”

“Why was that?” Robbie asked. “You’re no coward, James, I know that much about you.”

“Sometimes it feels like we don’t know much about each other at all,” James said. 

Robbie smiled ruefully. “We did kind of go into this arse backwards. Most people get to know one another and then get to the shagging. Or they shag and walk away. We just kind of got stuck at the shagging part of our relationship and never really moved on.”

James kept his eyes on the label he was carefully picking away at. “Do we have a relationship?” he said.

“I hope so,” Robbie said. “I really hope so. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years, James.”

James jerked his gaze up and just stared at him.

“Didn’t you know that?” Robbie said, a little surprised by James’s shocked reaction. “Come on, love, surely you knew that?”

James silently shook his head, eyes still fixed on Robbie’s. 

“Well, bless me,” Robbie said. “I am an old fool after all.” He reached out and gently touched James’s hand laying slack on the table. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m out of practise at what it takes to make a relationship work. To tell you the truth,” he admitted. “I’m not sure I was ever in practise. Val did most of the heavy lifting in that department.”

“I know you like the sex,” James said, his cheeks going a bit pink. “I mean, I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know how much you like the sex.”

“Abso-bloody-lutely amazing sex,” Robbie said smugly. 

James ducked his head, smiling a little. “Yeah,” he said, with somewhat less than his usual wit. “But other than that we never really, um.”

“Talked?” Robbie said.

James shrugged. “Didn’t really have time to, what with all the sex.”

“I did feel like I had a lot of catching up to do in that department,” Robbie said. He wondered if it was the time to bring up James’s revelation that he’d never had sex with another man. Something that still had Robbie’s head reeling. But he decided that maybe it was a discussion for a less fraught day.

“Me too,” James agreed, still blushing. 

“But I’m sorry we didn’t spend a little more time out of bed actually becoming better friends.” Maybe you would have trusted me a bit more if we had, Robbie thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. They’d both said their piece on that subject.

“I didn’t really want to be alone tonight,” James admitted, hunching his shoulders. “Can we go to bed?” He must have seen some of the doubt Robbie was feeling because he rushed into speech. “Just to sleep?” he said. “Can we do that?”

Robbie looked at his young lover, sitting with his shoulders stooped defensively. His body language screamed that he was expecting rejection, and even if he hadn’t been hopelessly in love with the silly sod at this point, Robbie knew he wouldn’t have had the heart to say no.

“I could do with a cuddle meself,” he said instead, and James’s tense shoulders relaxed a little. 

888

“This feels weird,” James said.

Robbie looked down at the shorn golden head laying on his breast. “We’ve cuddled before,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but usually we’re sleepy and sticky by the time we do.”

Robbie snorted and James looked up at him, brows lifting, and then they both started laughing. “Ah, bonny lad,” Robbie sighed, as the chuckles faded away. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Don’t let me go,” James said.

888

Lewis dropped James off at the funeral while he went to interview Dr Carey Melville, former Dean of Mayfield. 

By evening Robbie had also interviewed Will’s father. The man was drunk and bitter, and obviously grieving for his son, regretting his stance against the boy’s sexuality. It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that he could strike out in the throes of that grief and kill someone he blamed for Will’s suicide.

But murder with a red hot poker? Robbie just couldn’t see him as a sadistic torturer. Although maybe that was the father in him, resonating in sympathy with the man’s grief. Bad enough to lose a son, but to live lifelong with the regret of having rejected who he was as well?

Regrets, Robbie thought. The one thing that never faded. 

888

By the next afternoon both Lady Hugh and Dr Carey Melville had also been murdered, all evidence pointing to the mysterious Feardorcha Phelan, and both with the words Life Born of Fire at the scene.

“The firebird,” Robbie muttered. “The Phoenix. Mascot of Mayfield College, symbol of The Garden. And now the signature of the person or persons killing everyone involved with that hateful group.”

“Is this an end to it?” James said, then he looked over at the gateway. “That’s Jonjo,” he said, hearing the voices raised in argument.

“Talk to him,” Robbie ordered. “Find out what he knows, then come straight back. I don’t want you wandering around alone. Maybe the killer will be satisfied with his revenge on The Garden.”

“Or maybe he’ll want revenge on everyone who wronged Will,” James said, and loped off to the commotion at the gate.

“That could be a long bloody list,” Robbie muttered.

888

“Feardorcha’s sacrifice,” Robbie mused. “What does that mean?”

“Jonjo didn’t know,” James said. “He said he hadn’t seen Will much over the last few months. That Will had pushed them all away for Zöe Kenneth.”

“What did you make to her?”

James shook his head. “She says she loved him. Was in love with him.”

“Enough in love with him to kill three people in revenge? Could she and Feardorcha be accomplices?”

“Both of Will’s former lovers?” James mused. “Teaming up to get revenge?” He frowned. “How likely is that?”

“This gay pride march Conan Jones organised is tomorrow, isn’t it?” Robbie said thoughtfully. “We should go. See them all in one place. Maybe Feardorcha will show up, in whatever guise he’s using.”

“My first Pride march,” James said. 

“Not mine,” Robbie said cheekily, and then smirked when James narrowed his eyes at him.

888

They were juggling shopping bags and a six pack when Robbie unlocked the door to his flat that evening, within a few steps into the hall he stopped dead. “D’you smell that?” he began, and then white hot pain crashed into his temple, and he went down.

888

Gasoline, Robbie thought, his stomach churning. That’s gasoline, and why does my bloody head hurt? He could hear voices through the pounding in his skull, they seemed to float in and out of his head. _Feardorcha._ He knew that name. _Brazil. I am the Phoenix, James._

James, Robbie thought, forcing his eyes open. The ceiling swam into view and he looked up at it, the smell of gasoline still choking his nostrils.

“It all began with you, James,” a low voice was saying. “Twice, Will reached out to you. Twice you turned him away. One word from you and none of this would have happened. No Garden, no suicide, no Life Born of Fire.”

“You’re crazy,” James was saying. “I treated Will badly, and I’m more sorry for that than I can say, but you can’t blame me for everything, just like that. What about Will’s own father, for god’s sake? He rejected his son for being gay, I have to believe that rejection made a hell of a lot more difference to Will than anything I said to him six years ago!”

Robbie turned his head, focusing on the lounge room. James was pacing back and forward and now Robbie could see the straight dark hair and the trim form of the woman facing him. Zöe Kenneth? She’d been at the funeral, hadn’t she?

“If only you’d showed some remorse,” Zöe went on, her voice eerily blank, as if the words were rehearsed, as if she hadn’t heard anything James had said. “I would have shown you a merciful death if you’d shown some true contrition. But in the end you were the worst one of all. The twisted founders of that hateful Garden, they were evil at their very core, but you...”

Robbie heard a clicking sound and his vision cleared enough to see a slim silver lighter in her hand. She was clicking the lid open and shut, open and shut, the movements mesmerising. Now Robbie’s mind cleared in an instant, despite the pounding in his skull. She’d doused the room in gas, and was holding James at bay with the lighter in her hand.

James took another few agitated steps, and Robbie could see that with every narrow span of pacing he was moving further clockwise. And that Zöe was following his movements, turning her back more and more on Robbie.

Perhaps she thought he was dead? Perhaps she’d forgotten him?

“You’re worse than any of them,” Zöe said, still in that low monotone. “Because you threw Will to the lions for what he was – and it’s what you are too. You condemned him for being gay, when you were gay yourself. Do you know what that makes you? I followed you, I saw you in the park being comforted by your lover. But what comfort did you have for Will?”

“I was young, I was confused,” James said fiercely. “I was the same age as he was, why did he have to come to me, expect me to solve all his problems for him? What about my problems, my demons? When did he ever extend a hand to help me with my struggles?”

Robbie rolled over onto his belly and then pushed himself to his hands and knees, all his attention focused on that hand, that lighter, its lid being clicked open and closed, open and closed. He would only have one shot at this, or they’d all go up in smoke.

James chest was heaving, his fists were clenched. “Admit it, Zöe, this isn’t about revenge on me, this is your guilt, your regret! It wasn’t me who drove Will over the edge, it was you!”

Zöe finally seemed to register what he was saying, her back stiffened, her head came up.

“Feardorcha’s sacrifice, that’s what drove away the last of his hope,” James said relentlessly. “Whose crazy idea was it? Who in their right mind would think you could turn yourself into a woman and suddenly Will would be straight? And when it failed – as it was surely destined to fail – all Will had left was your sacrifice to haunt him. This was never about my guilt, Zöe, this was about yours!”

“How dare you?” Zöe growled. “How dare you! You can burn in Hell, James Hathaway, you and your lover both!”

Robbie leapt, hand outstretched, his only goal to get that lighter out of her reach. He caught her wrist and the lighter flew through the air, hitting the wooden floor with a clatter. 

Surprisingly strong, she struggled, punching back at him, and Robbie reeled, just as James tackled them both. They went down in a squelch onto the sodden carpet, and James cried out as Zöe went for his eyes with fingers like claws. In an instant she was scrambling away and running down the hall.

“Go after her,” Robbie said thickly, his head swimming.

“I’m not leaving you,” James said, hauling him up by his arms. Suddenly there was a terrifying screech of brakes in the street, and someone screamed. Robbie stared at James, and they both stumbled to the open door, wet and reeking of petrol.

In the street outside a fire truck had stopped dead in the road and a young firefighter was climbing out of the cabin, his face grey.

“She ran out,” he said in horror. “She just ran out, there was nothing I could do.”

888

Lewis winced under the attention of the paramedic, who was pressing a sterile pad to his temple. “You both need to get out of those clothes,” the paramedic said. “Before you go to hospital. That gasoline will start causing significant irritation if it’s not cleaned off.”

“I’ll get you some scene suits,” Innocent said. “There’s no going into your flat until Hazmat have cleared it, Robbie, I’m afraid. Good news is that it looks like she only poured the gas in the living room.”

“My couch,” Robbie said sadly. “I have fond memories of that couch.”

James quirked a tiny smile.

“Why do you think she targeted you, Hathaway?” Innocent said. “The founders of The Garden I can understand, but you were Will’s friend, weren’t you?”

“We did have a falling out years ago when he came out as gay,” James said, and Robbie watched him closely. James was pale and still a little shaky, but his eyes were clear, his shoulders straight.

Innocent lifted a surprised brow and James shrugged. “I was pretty immature back then,” he confessed.

“Well, thank god there were two of you when she attacked. It looks like she might have gone on killing everyone she blamed for Will’s suicide.”

They all gazed at the fire truck and the twisted form being extricated from under its wheels.

“Life Born of Fire. Fire truck,” Robbie said sourly. “If my head didn’t hurt so much I’d have a very witty response to that irony.”

“No doubt,” James said. “How’s the driver?”

Innocent grimaced. “I think he feels marginally better after being told the woman he hit had murdered three people and had just tried to burn two policeman alive.” She shook her head briskly. “Anyway, you two need to get to the hospital and get checked over. I’ll fetch those scene suits.”

 

888

A uniformed constable dropped them at James’s flat, now wearing cotton scrubs. Casualty had taken one sniff of them and forced them into hazmat showers to remove all traces of the gasoline from their skin. Then Robbie had been checked over and diagnosed as concussed.

“Luckily you have a few things of yours in the wardrobe,” James said, leading the way into the flat, switching on lamps as he crossed to the kitchen. “Cuppa?”

“I’d murder for one,” Robbie said, sitting carefully on the lounge and leaning back. “What I want to know is, why am I the one who keeps getting hit in the head?” he complained.

“Easy target?” James suggested. He opened the fridge. “I have cheese, dubious eggs, a tomato rapidly evolving into a sentient life form, and beer. None of which go with tea.”

“I’m not hungry,” Robbie said, closing his eyes with a sigh. He relaxed into the comforting sounds of James moving around the kitchenette.

“Here.”

He opened his eyes and accepted the mug of tea James was holding out, sipping it gratefully. James sat down next to him, a mug in his hand.

“I can order something to eat later,” James murmured. “Why don’t you take a pill and lay down?”

“Will you lay down with me?” Robbie asked. 

“That’s the plan.” James sipped his tea. “I have to wake you up every couple of hours anyway.” 

“I still can’t believe Zöe was Feardorcha,” Robbie said. “She must have been crazy. Her and Will both must have been crazy.”

“Let’s not talk about it tonight,” James said, putting his mug on the coffee table. “We’ll have time it hash it all out when we write our reports.”

Robbie finished his mug with a sigh. “Just one more thing though,” he said. “I missed some of the conversation you two were having.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“But I heard what you said about Will’s father. About Zöe’s own guilt. Do you really believe that?”

James shrugged in that graceful boneless way he had. “I suppose I’ve been thinking about what you said that day in the park. I’ll never entirely forgive myself for being a total prat back then.”

Robbie rubbed his arm gently. 

“But I don’t think I was completely to blame for what Will did. I’ll never know though,” he went on sadly. “I’ll never know if I could have made a difference back then.”

“It’s one of those regrets that you’ll just have to learn to live with,” Robbie said softly. “The thing with regrets is that sometimes we have the chance to learn from them. I can honestly say I’m a better man today for the mistakes I made and learned from.” He nudged James with his shoulder. “I wouldn’t have you if I hadn’t learned from a few of those regrets.”

“Do you have me?” James asked quietly, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “You’re exhausted and in pain, this isn’t the time for all that.”

He jumped up and held out his hand, and Robbie grasped his arm and hauled himself painfully to his feet.

“It’s not the time,” he agreed, keeping hold of James’s forearm. “But I promised you a real talk when the case was over. You still have a decision to make.”

“No I don’t,” James said. “We’ll talk, we need to talk. But I made my decision a long time ago. I’m not going anywhere.”

Robbie leaned against him and James’s arms carefully encircled him and pulled him close. “Nether am I, bonny lad,” he sighed.

888

Robbie woke to a gentle kiss on his cheek, and he smiled and turned his head blindly, seeking those elusive lips with his own.

“Uh uh,” James murmured. “This is just your two am wake up call. How’s the head?”

“Sore,” Robbie said. “But better for that kiss. May I have another?”

“Sorry, doctor’s orders. No excitement, remember? Want a drink?”

Robbie sat up, letting James plump the cushions behind him, and accepting the glass of water. “I could get used to being spoiled,” he said.

“It’d drive you nuts after a day or so,” James said, sitting cross legged on the bed. The bedside lamp was on, but angled away so the room was all shadows and darkness. 

“See, you do know something about me,” Robbie said, drinking his fill and handing the glass back. James took a sip and set it on the bedside table. 

“I know lots about you,” James said. “Mostly how to drive you absolutely wild in bed.”

Robbie’s cheeks creased into a grin. “Handy knowledge to have that. And exclusive.”

James lifted a brow. “I should bloody well hope so,” he said mildly. Then he wrinkled his nose. “And I suppose it’s too much to ask that you forget my little confession the other day?”

Robbie’s grin turned to a fond smile. “The one where you admitted I was your first male lover?” he said. “Sorry. Too busy puffing out my chest and strutting around at the thought. Internally of course.”

“Of course,” James muttered, his cheeks pink. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “Just timing really.”

“Uh huh.” Robbie held out a hand and James took it, linking fingers on Robbie’s knee. “You seem to have had a harder time than most,” he said gently. “Accepting that side of yourself.”

“Understatement of the year,” James said wryly. “And by the time I could accept it, well.” He shrugged ruefully. “I’d effectively isolated myself. How was I going to meet someone? I didn’t have a clue where to start.”

“ _I have been a sojourner in a foreign land,_ ” Robbie quoted, and James stared at him.

“Exodus,” he said. “Exactly. That’s exactly how I felt. Like I didn’t speak the language, know the cues, could read the signs.”

“And you, being you, would rather be alone than make a fool of yourself.”

James shrugged. “You know a bit about me too, it seems.”

“So when I invited you for a quick snog in the bushes?” Robbie said.

“I thought of all the reasons why it was a bad idea. And then I thought - bugger it,” James said, and he started laughing.

Robbie grinned at him, lifting one lean hand and kissing it. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, and James just shook his head, still smiling.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” Robbie said. “It’s okay if I call you shaggable, but not if I think you’re beautiful?”

“I suppose it’s a cross I’ll have to bear,” James said, squeezing his hand.

“You can call it a matter of timing,” Robbie said. “But really it was my dominant male instincts coming to the fore.”

James looked at him sceptically. “You what?”

Robbie nodded wisely. “There I was,” he said. “An apex predator, stalking the fringes of Laura’s party.”

James lifted one eyebrow.

“And there you were, the graceful gazelle, innocently minding his own business, drinking champagne right from the bottle.”

“How’s that concussion going?” James said, laying the back of his hand on Robbie’s forehead.

“The dominant lion Lewis,” Robbie said, “Spied his prey and skilfully cut him from the herd, running him down and bagging his prize, all before the other lions even got a sniff. That’s pure talent, that is.”

“Right, I’m calling the doctor.” James made as if to get up and Robbie pulled him back, lifting his arm and letting him snuggle in close.

“Oh no you don’t,” Robbie said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

He sat back against the pillows, feeling his eyes drooping, James’s shorn golden head resting on his heart. In the hall a clock ticked, outside in the distance a dog barked at the moon. Robbie stroked his fingers over the soft buzz cut, the way he wanted to do a hundred times a day.

“Scared me,” James said softly, his breath warm and damp on Robbie’s skin.

Robbie tightened his hold. “I scared you?” he whispered back. “I wasn’t the one standing in a pool of gasoline while a lunatic played with her lighter.”

“You went down,” James said. “I didn’t know if you were even still alive. All I could think about was leading her away from you, away from the door. So that you’d have a chance to get out if she lit the fire.”

“I wouldn’t have gone,” Robbie told him. “I wouldn’t have gone anywhere without you. I’d have saved you from the flames or burnt with you.”

James tilted his head back and gazed at him, that slightly myopic gaze he had at night after he’d taken his contacts off, the one that wrung Robbie’s, silly, tender old heart.

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years too,” James said. Robbie pressed a kiss to those lips – those devilish, tempting, troublesome lips that had literally led him down the garden path to wherever it was they were now, and when he drew back they were curved in a smile.

Robbie smiled back, wondering how to tell James that as much as he loved to watch him come, to convulse with pleasure, to squeeze his eyes shut and throw his head back and moan – he loved this more. To see James smile. To watch his eyes light up, to hear him laugh.

He’d figure out a way tomorrow, he decided. 

888

“So,” James was bent over the computer screen, typing away. “What are you doing Saturday night?”

Robbie looked up from the report he was painstakingly typing. “How do you spell ‘exsanguinate?”

“I don’t. Saturday night. What are you doing?”

Lewis glanced at the closed door of their office. “Dragging you to my bed and shagging your brains out, I hope,” he said, hoping to make James blush.

“Please, sir,” James said primly. “You’ll get me all flustered.”

Robbie grinned and took a guess at the spelling. Thank god for spell check. 

“Before the naughty portion of the evening,” James said. “I thought we could go out for a meal. Gino’s?”

Robbie raised a brow. “You mean actually dining at the restaurant and not just picking up our meals in tin foil boxes? Like grown ups?”

“Like a date,” James said. “With talking and everything.”

Robbie stuck out his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Hmm. Sounds promising.”

“Then we could take a walk, down by the river. Stroll along, hand in hand, rendered incognito by the night.”

“Go on,” Robbie invited.

“And then perhaps you could drag me into the bushes for a quick snog.”

“Sounds like I’m on a promise,” Robbie said happily. And he finished his report.


End file.
